


The Wind Is Howling

by FuriousPoplar



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: 8 year olds are probably not the bravest people around, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Pacifist Route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 16:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5546429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FuriousPoplar/pseuds/FuriousPoplar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Undyne blocks the way, as she's done before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wind Is Howling

“The wind is howling. You are filled with Determination.”

Some faded voice in the Human’s head was trying to convince them that the glow of the churning sea of fire in the distance, the dreadful moaning of the breeze in their ear and the steel-clad monster standing ahead filled them with hope to succeed, rather than despair. First time, it had worked; they had been afraid, but confident that they could talk this person down like they had with everyone else. They still had their encounter with Papyrus on their mind at the time- who knew, maybe they could even wind up as friends, they had thought. So they boldly stepped forth, ready for whatever the head of the Royal Guard had to throw at them…

And she killed them.

Not even a full minute in, and she had forced a spear between their ribs, twisting as it shredded lungs and split their heart in two. There had been a moment of standing propped on stiffened legs, struggling to find the strength to breathe and feeling an oozing wave of damp heat run down their stomach before they blinked and found themselves back around the corner, alive again. They had found themselves gasping for air whilst staggering about and clutching in horror at their chest, trying to find the hole that had been there moments ago. The throbbing echoes of the pain still lingered in their mind, the memory of the sickly warmth spilling onto them and rising in their throat making their skin crawl and write in disgust.

She had killed them.

But, the shock of it all was too much for it to seem real. They couldn’t have REALLY died, right? They were standing here, weren’t they? It must have just been a bad dream, even though they couldn’t remember falling asleep. And so, in the howling wind, they found the Determination to step forth again…

This time, the Spear had landed right between their eyes, leaving them with the wet crack of their skull splitting open as their last memory.

She had killed them again.

…Then she killed them again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

A n d   a g a i n . . .

…

Undyne hadn’t thought it _too_ strange that the Human slipped around the dead-end corner after her speech- most likely trying to build up what little courage they had to face her, now that they didn’t have an innocent kid to cower behind.

 

But it had been 10 minutes now, and they still had not come out.

 

“Going to hide there all day, are you? You’re an even bigger coward than I thought.”

The roaring gale drowned out her voice, so she opted to go say it to the Human’s face. She had tired of waiting, anyways.

She rounded the corner and saw the Human huddled in the center of the room. Their mouth hung faintly open. Their arms wrapped around themselves tightly. Their eyes, sunken far into their head, hollowly stared a thousand miles through the dirt they sat on. She had almost mistaken them for dead.

…

Nine.

Nine Times.

The voice in their head no longer had anything to say about the way the wind screeched or how their heart welled up to bursting with Determination. The wind still raged on outside this little corner, but they were completely drained.

She had killed them _nine times._

It wasn’t possible to get used to dying. Each time they had felt the sharp, immaterial lump of the spear burrow itself into their chest it had been just as excruciating as the last.

They thought about getting up. About going back out there. About trying to hide behind the flimsy shield they had been given as the flurry of attacks crashed against it. About trying to peel their flinching eyelids open to see where the next spear would come from. About the torrent of pain and terror that would crush them to the floor when they failed…

They couldn’t do it. They were too afraid.

The familiar thumping of steel boots snapped their view up to _her,_ teal spear in hand.

…

 

She knew the Human was a coward, but...

Upon seeing her, their squinted eyes immediately tore open and their pupils constricted to little jittery pinpricks. Every hint of color drained from their face. Their breath cut out with a faint whimper, leaving them dead silent save for the pounding of their heart.

…They were really scared, even though she had barely done anything to them.

She took a step forward.

Tears streamed down their cheeks and onto the floor as they kicked and clambered away, leaving a two-pronged trail along the ground. Their breathing returned, but as ragged hyperventilation suffocated by sobs. Half-baked and barely audible little ‘No’s and begs spilled from their mouth.

Another step forward.

They backed into a wall but didn’t stop, either not realizing they weren’t going anywhere or praying that they might be able to push right through the solid stone.

Another step.

Their knees folded into their breast. The begging grew louder.

Another step.

She was looming over them now, her shadow dwarfing their body as they tried to shrink themselves down even further.

Another step.

“P-please no, n-not again! Please d-don’t… don’t k-k-kill m…me a-again…” Each word had to claw its way out through the hiccups.

…She stopped dead in her tracks.

_Don’t kill me **again**_

Something about that last part didn’t sit well with her.

_… **again** …_

She rolled it around in her mind over and over. No, she didn’t like that word where it was, not one bit. She felt something distant in the back of her head, like a voice she hadn’t heard in a long time. She looked back into her memory to try to figure out what it was, when she let something into her thoughts by mistake…

_Not… not now, okay? I don’t need to remember them NOW. Bug me about it when I’m trying to sleep tonight._

She tried to plead with the thought in vain, but it was too late. Now the other humans were flooding her memories, and it’s always an awful pain in the ass to get them back out.

_I can worry about them later. I’ll build them all little statues on the surface or something. We just need one more. Just one more time. We’re so close to being free._

She remembered the little girl, dressed in small dancing shoes and dusty pink tutu.

_She killed three monsters. That’s three families that will never be whole again. She had it coming._

Then she remembered the young man, with two leather gloves and an unrelenting line of questions about where his little sister had gone. She remembered how he called the human’s name in failure, trying to apologize for not being a good brother to her when she was still around as his last breath dripped out of the tear between his ribs.

_Just stop, please. Not. Now._

Then she remembered the bookworm. May have been a girl, may have been a boy. Wore glasses so clouded that it should have been impossible to see out of them. They didn’t even have the courage to fight back. Gerson had their stuff, she remembered. Kind of surprising that it didn’t just end up garbage, that notebook should have been soaked clean through with blood after she  h a d  m u r d e r e d-

_Stop. STOP. STOP IT! THIS IS BIGGER THAN A FEW KIDS, OKAY?_

She crushed her teeth together and screamed into her own mind, demanding that the memories leave her be.

_THIS…_

Her shoulders felt very heavy.

_This…_

She felt her hand fall open, letting the spear fade away.

“This… isn’t right.”

The child had taken to hiding their head in their knees, lest they have to watch it happen.

“Human.”

They dared a peek upwards.

“By order of the King, you are under arrest. You will come with me to the royal laboratory, where you will be held until…”

An exhausted sigh broke the authority in her voice.

“…until we figure something out.” She would have shrugged, but she was feeling rather worn-out all of a sudden and didn’t feel it was worth what little energy she had left.

The child had stopped crying, at least, but they still trembled and stared at her with a wretched look of fear.

“I will not hurt you, I promise.”

The child flinched away from her outstretched hand at first, but slowly and cautiously reached to grab on. Even slower, they got up off the ground. 

The barrier needed 7 souls to break, but they already had 6, right? Maybe they could… cheat? Find a way to get the extra power they needed from somewhere else. That way, nobody else would have to get hurt.

 

She hoped so. She was so sick of hurting people. 

 


End file.
